


To Love and Be Loved

by librata



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Autistic David Haller, Canon Disabled Character, Charles Xavier in a Wheelchair, Domestic Fluff, Family Fluff, Fluff, Jean Grey is Charles and Erik's Daughter, M/M, Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day Fluff, dadneto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29423757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librata/pseuds/librata
Summary: Erik wakes up on a Sunday morning to an empty bed and a house full of chaos.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 91
Collections: X-Men X-Traordinaire's Cherik Valentine's Day Exchange





	To Love and Be Loved

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/gifts).



> Written as part of the X-Men X-Traordinaire Valentine's Day exchange! 
> 
> For the prompt:  
>  _Charles and Erik spend some time with their children and each other._

There was something amiss.

Even before Erik was truly awake and free from his sleepy haze, he could feel the incongruence. More accurately, he _couldn’t_ feel all that he was supposed to feel, and the absence is what pushed him over that final boundary barring sleep and wakefulness. 

His eyes shot open, but before they could sharpen into focus, he stretched an arm across the bed, grappling for the warm body that was supposed to respond to his touch. Instead, his arm landed upon rumpled bed sheets, cold and bereft.

Charles wasn’t there. His wheelchair wasn’t in its usual place at the bedside either, which explained the gnawing absence against his metalsense. Erik squinted at the wall clock, which indicated that it was just past 7 in the morning. A bit late for Erik to be just waking up and nearly five hours too early for Charles to be awake enough to be out of bed. 

Quickly, Erik scanned his own memory in hopes of locating a tangible explanation. Had he been ill? Was it actually 7 in the evening instead? That theory quickly put itself to rest when he remembered their pre-bedtime….activities from the previous evening. He’d been tucked into Charles’s side before falling asleep, too, and he was pretty sure that Charles hadn’t been planning on leaving bed to do his Late Night Charles Things after he’d finally passed out.

The panic flooded then—was he alright? Had something happened to Charles or one of the children in the night? Desperately, Erik extended his metalsense outward, only breathing when he latched on to the metal frame of Charles’s wheelchair, which was also surrounded by several smaller tokens.

Silver and gold necklaces for the twins. Titanium earrings for Jean. A platinum bracelet for David, and a minuscule cobalt anklet for two-year-old Nina. Erik could feel each piece of metal, flitting around Charles somewhere downstairs.

Relief overtook the panic then, but it was also accompanied by a very specific brand of skepticism. Why in the world would all five of his children be up at this hour on a _Sunday?_ Even more notably, why would _Charles_ be up with them?

_Your disbelief is somewhat insulting, my love,_ came Charles’s voice in his head. _You act as if I’m nothing but an irresponsible layabout._

_Last Sunday, I had to wake you up for lunch. At 12:30 in the afternoon._

_You’re very rude. Perhaps you shouldn’t come down and join us._

_Hmph._ A warm trickle of affection pressed back against Erik’s mind, and despite himself, which was his cue to traipse over to the closet and pull on a shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Typically, the mornings were his to exercise and get the day off to a productive start, but something else was in store today, it seemed. Charles was as level-headed and collected as ever, which gave nothing away, as Charles was _always_ level-headed and collected when he was hiding something, the bastard.

As he made his way downstairs, however, Erik quickly realized that Charles’s calm had been even more deceitful than he could have imagined.

“Pietro, _stop!_ ” rang Jean’s voice. “You’re getting syrup in my hair!”

“Am not!” Pietro’s voice returned, and was then followed by a loud crash and a clatter. 

“That was Wanda’s fault—”

“No it _wasn’t,_ Davey made me trip!”

For the briefest of moments, the walls trembled, and Erik quickened his pace as Charles spoke loud above their cacophony.

“That’s enough, everyone. David, the house has not done anything to you, if you’re angry with Wanda—”

“I didn’t do _anything_ , Dad!”

“If you’re angry with Wanda, you can let her know. Alright?”

Following the clamor, Erik hurried into the kitchen and was greeted by a high-pitched squeal from Nina, who was seated atop the round kitchen table with her tiny fists plunged deep into a bowl of….something, but it soon became apparent that his youngest child was the cleanest thing in the entire room.

No surface had more than a free inch, with bowls, utensils, cooking instruments, and spilled food dominating each space. Flour and more of the sludge-like substance with which Nina was entertaining herself splattered the walls in several places, and there was something acrid bubbling like tar pits on the stove. 

Wanda and Jean were hovering over the concoction while Pietro stood beside them with an empty syrup bottle stuck to his syrup-covered hands. David was seated at the table beside Charles, his face narrowed in a way that exuded displeasure but not discomfort, his finger tapping on one of the cards he used to communicate.

Charles, still wearing a robe, wore an exasperated expression which was underscored by the extra messy sweep of his hair and the smattering of flour on his cheek. His eyes had lifted when Erik swung the door open, and they met each other’s gaze for a moment before a gust of wind nearly knocked him sideways.

_”Pietro!”_ Wanda wailed as she herself staggered backwards, causing her to fling a disk of that bubbling matter straight to the floor. “Look what you made me do!”

“And I just stepped in it and it’s _hot!_ ” added Jean as she hopped on one leg, the beige substance dripping from her other foot. 

“Not my fault you two are clumsy,” said Pietro once he materialized beside Nina, who squealed again and slammed her goopy hands against the table. 

“Papa!” she cried happily, and then all four of his other children stopped what they were doing and snapped their heads toward him. 

Erik stood in the doorway of the kitchen, stunned. Living in a home with five mutant children under the age of ten always spelled chaos, but the scene before him took the idea of chaos to an entirely new place. 

The room was a mess. The children were a mess. Charles looked to be on the edge of collapse. And then, without warning, his senses were completely overtaken by a telepathic vision of flames, which continued to rise and rise until he could see nothing but fire.

“Oh, Scheiße,” Erik hissed as he hastily pushed David’s projection out of his head and darted to the stove. The skillet of food was just beginning to smoke when he yanked it from the cooktop and quickly deposited it in the sink.

“You ruined the pancakes, Papa!” Jean cried as soon as the tap was running. “Those were the last ones!”

“I ruined your house fire, you mean,” Erik replied sternly, and then looked toward his eight-year-old son. “Thank you for the warning, David.”

David nodded once at him, and then tapped more firmly on the card, to which Charles replied with a sigh. “Yes, I know Wanda accused you of tripping her—”

“That’s because he _did_ —”

“And you can be angry with her—”  
“Davey didn’t trip her, Wanda’s just clumsy,” jeered Pietro. 

“Am _not!_ ” she cried, and once more, the walls around them began to quake.

“Enough!” roared Erik as he raised his hands, stilling the walls and silencing the wails of his brood. “What in the _world_ is going on in here? It’s seven o’clock in the bloody morning!”

The silence settled around them for a few moments, and then Charles, still seated beside David at the table, cleared his throat. “The children and I thought that it would be nice to make you a Valentine’s Day breakfast, love,” he said in that same tone, that mask of calm atop something unknowable. “As a surprise.”

Erik blinked at his husband. The children were still now, looking at him with expectant eyes. Even Nina, cheeks now covered in what Erik knew now to be pancake batter, eyed him eagerly. 

“You...all got up early to make me breakfast?” Erik asked after a moment, brow cocking upward. “For Valentine’s Day.”

Jean shrugged. “You always make breakfast, Papa. We wanted to do it for you, so that you didn’t have to.”

“We tried to make them into the shape of a heart, but….they’re kinda just blobs instead,” Wanda said sheepishly, pointing at the stack of overcooked pancakes on the counter. “But Daddy says that real hearts kinda look like blobs, so it’s okay.”

“I already put syrup on ‘em, too,” Pietro added, proudly.

David held up a card with an image of a bowl, letting Erik know how he had contributed to the morning’s undertaking.

“And Nina is ensuring that none of the batter goes to waste,” Charles added with a nod to their youngest, who beamed as she reached out toward Erik with her covered hands. 

Warmth began to spread inside of Erik as he wordlessly stepped toward the table and lifted Nina into his arms, uncaring that his clothes would be covered with her mess. The room was an utter disaster, his children were covered with gloppy batter, and the pancakes were most certainly far too overcooked to be enjoyable, but he didn’t think that he could feel any more grateful for his family than he did in that moment. 

“And what did you do, Schatz?” Erik asked his husband as a smile crawled its way across his lips.  
“I supervised,” said Charles simply. “You know how good I am at that.”

Erik rolled his eyes, but his smile broadened as he turned to face his children. Life in their household was always mad and sometimes, Erik forgot to stop and consider just how fortunate he was to have landed here. By some grace of some cosmic luck, he had managed to find his way into a family who, despite all of their clashes, loved and cared for each other in ways that Erik had once thought impossible. The children— _their_ children—were young, but they already knew what it meant to love and be loved, and that, Erik knew, was the most incredible gift any person could ever receive. 

Affection for each and every one of them felt as if it was spilling out of his pores, and he momentarily wished that he could swap abilities with one of the telepaths in the room, as he wanted them all to _feel_ the swell of love crash over them like a wave. 

“This is the most wonderful Valentine’s Day gift I’ve ever gotten,” he said sincerely, planting a kiss on Nina’s forehead. “Thank you, all.”

Immediately, the children perked at his words, grins of their own hinting at their pride. 

“It was my idea,” said Jean smugly.

“It was _not,_ ” Pietro insisted. “I told you yesterday that we should wake up early—”

“No you didn’t,” Wanda cut in. “You said that you wanted pancakes for breakfast, and it was _me_ who said that we should make them for Papa for Valentine’s Day—”

“All of us had the same exact idea at the same exact time,” Charles interrupted, the tenor in his voice allowing no more argument. “Now, why don’t we sit down and enjoy what you’ve all made for your Papa, hmm?”

The pancakes were terrible. The outsides were burnt to a near crisp while the centers were still soft and runny, and they were so deeply saturated with maple syrup that Erik was certain they would all soon need trips to the dentist.

But, they were still the best anatomical heart-shaped pancakes he had ever had.


End file.
